Syndicated

We kept getting messages that the cluster node was offline because the Quorum was unavailable. This made little sense as both nodes in this cluster were online and the Quorum disk was available. We could ping across the heartbeat, everything looked fine except for these errors.

After a little research we determined that a new version of Symantec Endpoint Security had been pushed to these servers. Even with the new version of endpoint security, we could establish communication across all networks between the 2 nodes so we were a little stumped. Eventually we ran across a policy that was being enforced from the Symantec central management server/policy/whatever its called!

As it turns out, Symantec endpoint security by default blocks all IPV6 traffic. If you’re like me, I didn’t even realize that a windows 2008 cluster would use IPV6 for the heartbeat communication. After disabling the rules that were preventing IPV6 traffic everything returned to normal.

So, the moral of all this is nothing new… NEVER trust anything new getting pushed to your servers..

Recently, the 3 of you that read this stream of (un)consciousness may have noticed a lot of posts about PASS and the Board of Directors elections. I was pleasantly surprised to see the news last Friday that I had indeed been elected to a 2 year term on the PASS board.

I’d like to start by thanking everyone who voted, even if you chose not to vote for me. We need more community involvement in all things PASS, and voting is a very important part of that!

This election was not without its fair share of controversy and while overall it was a difficult process for the community to go through, I think a lot of good can result from it. I hope that everyone who had an opinion about the “process” stays involved. Staying involved & interested is the easiest way the community can shape the future of the organization.

I’m very excited to have the opportunity to serve the SQL Server Community in a larger role than in the past. As always, if you’ve got ideas feel free to send em to me. I cant make any promises except that I will read and respond but, Im a fan of stealing borrowing others ideas for PASS and making them happen.

Other recent PASS info

Weve had a literal whirlwind of activity in the program committee leadership in the last month+ So, I thought I’d list some of the stuff thats been happening

Some highlights

We gathered a large group of volunteers to proofread abstracts before publishing in the program guide

Also, we hammered out all the details for 3 new session types for the Summit : Chalk talk sessions, Best of sessions, and lightning sessions

Published a Session preferencing tool to help us build a good schedule (awesome data gathered here!!)

We built the summit schedule – this is always fun, if you have any complaints, its on me

We gathered a team of volunteers to review session powerpoints so I wont be doing them alone on the last day (YAY!) in doing this we updated the review guidelines to be more relevant/current

I had hoped we would nail down the Microsoft speakers & sessions a little better (earlier) this year but, it seems like we’ve been getting more changes & cancellations than Id have liked.

We worked on Coordinated with VC’s & pre/postconference speakers to try and setup livemeeting previews of their sessions — Marketing & free community education –thats like Bacon wrapped Bacon Win-Win!

Lots of discussions with our Summit software vendor about availability of ppt updates, demos, etc during the summit. Updates soon

Upcoming releases

The Summit Schedule builder *should* go live on Monday the 27th Also, realize this is an expected date but things occasionally happen so dont scream too much if its a lil late (or someone will let me know their displeasure with my tipping of the due dates)

Community experts summit session lists – we’ve asked some experts for their opinions about which sessions to attend, I cant wait to see what these lists look like!

Other Interesting Discussions happening

Whether we’re going to record/stream a session room at the Summit and what we’d do with those recordings

Whether we should switch back to 2 days of Preconference sessions or stick with 1 day pre and 1 day post

Whether we should be providing desktops in the session rooms for speakers (most don’t seem to use them)

If you are reading this, you probably haven’t decided on who to vote for in the PASS Board of Directors election. You’re not alone! Here’s a secret [Shhh: don’t tell] I haven’t decided who I’m going to vote for either. Have no fear though, for the first year in the history of PASS, there is a literal plethora of information on the PASS Elections Site about the candidates and their stances on “the issues”

So, consider this to be my personal invitation to you to follow my lead and stop procrastinating!! Go now to the PASS elections site, read about the candidates. If you want to know something about us, use the forums, and ask. I know at least 1 candidate that will answer your question. Once you’ve done all that come back here, Ill still be waiting. Now, do what I’m going to do: I’ll be finding the PASS BOD email ballot, then Ill be selecting the link and clicking on “Allen Kinsel” & 2 other candidates then hitting submit!

I’ve never been known to be the subtle type, so I figure no sense in starting now. If you need a little more subtlety about why I think you should vote for me, look here. The #1 thing though, is you, PASS Member, you need to vote. It matters a great deal to our SQL Server community, even if you must vote for someone other than me [I disagree but, understand]..

According to the official timeline today is the big day. No, it’s not Valentines Day, but rather an even more important day. Today is the day when we, the PASS community, get to vote for and elect our new leaders. Today is the opening day of the PASS Board of Directors Election. This is our communities chance to have a say in the direction of the PASS organization.

Hopefully if you’re taking the time to read this you are in the process of deciding which of the 5 candidates for the PASS Board of Directors you’d like to vote for. I want to thank you for being an educated PASS member and taking your valuable time to vet the candidates on their stances with relation to PASS. To hopefully help make that process easier, I’m going to aggregate all of my views about the PASS election at the bottom of this post.

I had hoped to come up with some terrific tagline that would convey what I bring to the table in this election but, I just couldn’t make anything fit without it become 4 paragraphs so I decided to instead leave this picture since it does a better job.

At some point today you should get an email ballot from I would be honored If you would cast one of your votes for me. I’m running for the PASS Board of Directors, and I need your help to make a difference.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the last 3 or 4 months about “why” I wanted to run for the PASS Board. I think I have finally come to the point where I can distill it down into a list of 5 specific things that I will work to make happen while on the PASS Board

5. Pass Summit location. I believe that we can reach more of our membership by moving the location of the annual summit. I like the idea of a 3 year rotation in Seattle.

4. Transparency. I plan to continue the push for as much release of information as the community wants. Particular things I’d like to see: full disclosure of individual BOD votes, more exposure of the Executive Committee “election process”

3. Better Chapter Support. We need to do a better job at giving our chapter leaders what they need, some of the most frequently requested things on the chapter “needs” list could be completed more easily than many think if I can succeed with item #1 on this list. I don’t necessarily want to “own” chapter support but, I think I can provide help to this group, especially where it lends itself to my strength in PASS : speaker management.

2. Professionalism. I want our association to become more professional. That is to say, to begin offering more than education as the primary benefit to membership. I think there should be more benefit to being a PASS member than education & networking .

1. Community Involvement. I want to get our volunteers engaged in as many processes and tasks as possible. I’ve done what I consider to be a pretty good job at getting as many people involved in the program committee processes as reasonably possible, Id like to expand that same involvement into all areas of PASS. I wrote a lengthy reply on the PASS election forum about this subject, let me know what you think.

If you believe in these changes and you like how I communicate them, consider voting for me. I’m running for the PASS Board of Directors, and I need your help to make a difference. Click here to read about why I’m running.